Patrol and Rescue Boats
on Puget Sound
is a new pictorial history book featuring more than 200
photos from sources ranging from the National Archives
to military veterans?personal collections, will be
released on December 12 . It is part of the “Images
of America?series produced by Arcadia Publishing
Company, the latest book covers more than a century
of fast patrol vessel history on the Sound. This time
span ranges from the construction and operation of the
Navy torpedo boat U.S.S. Rowan built by Seattle’s
Moran Brothers shipyard in 1898 to modern Coast Guard
homeland security boats produced by SAFE Boats
International of Port Orchard and Kvichak Marine
Industries of Seattle.

Co-authored by Chuck
Fowler and Dan Withers, the new volume is the third in
the “on Puget Sound?maritime history series which
includes “Tall Ships?published in 2007 and “Tugboats?
published in 2010. Fowler is past president of the
Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society in Seattle and
an Air Force veteran, and Withers is a Navy Vietnam War
destroyer veteran and president of the Combatant Craft
of America, a nonprofit patrol boat historical and
preservation group.

Among the little-known
stories and rare images featured in the new book are PT
(patrol torpedo) boats operating in Puget Sound during
World War II, production of the third largest number of
WWII Coast Guard picket boats in the nation by a
Kirkland boat builder, development of Bellingham-built
Navy river patrol boats and hydrofoil patrol boats by
Boeing during Vietnam War era of the 1960s and 1970s,
and production and operation of Coast Guard fast
response boats following the September 11, 2001 homeland
terrorist attacks. The book’s many previously
unpublished photos show that Puget Sound-based boat
builders and military maritime units have been important
parts of the nation’s patrol and rescue boat history.

For more information or to
pre-order your copy of the “Patrol and Rescue Boats on
Puget Sound?book visit www.arcadiapublishing.com
or their Toll Free Order Line 1-888-313-2665. The book
will also be available at many Puget Sound area museums,
book stores and other locations on December 12th.

PRBPS
Chapter Summaries:

Chapter one
describes the beginnings of patrol boats on
Puget Sound. As larger Navy sailing vessels
of the Revolutionary War in the late 1700s and
the War of 1812 gave way to new steam-powered
ships, such as gunboats like the Monitor
and Merrimac and even submarines during
the Civil War in the early 1860s, fast patrol
boats first appeared on the Pacific Coast.
During the late 1800s and through the end of
World War I in 1919, some of these vessels were
built and operated in the Pacific Northwest and
others were refitted commercial tug and fish
boats that were pressed into customs
anti-smuggling, other law enforcement and sea
safety service.

In 1920 the number
or patrol boats and their operation began to
increase in the region when the 18th
Amendment to the Constitution became law. The
amendment prohibited the production,
distribution, transport, import and export, and
consumption of alcoholic beverages throughout
the nation. This significant military maritime
development is covered in Chapter two.

The U.S. Coast Guard was given
the new, expanded responsibility of preventing
rum running boats from smuggling illegal the
illegal liquor on the Atlantic Coast, Gulf of
Mexico, and Pacific Coast including Washington
State and Puget Sound. Prohibition ended in
1933 with the repeal of the 18th
Amendment. But the 14 year period produced
major design and engine technology advances that
proved valuable when the Navy’s famous small PT
(patrol torpedo) and similar boats, as well as
fast Coast Guard and Army Air Force rescue
craft, were built during World War II. In
important combat and support roles throughout
the world, all of these tough, speedy small
boats were essential to United States?ultimate
victory.

The Cold War years from 1946 to
1991, which included major regional hot?wars in
Korea and Vietnam, is covered in Chapter
three. Although the Pacific conflicts
in the Far East in the early 1950s and in South
East Asia in the late 1960s and early 1970s were
fought far from Puget Sound, regional boat
builders designed and constructed many of the
patrol boats used in these wars. Many
innovative designs and production methods were
developed by boat manufacturers during these
periods. Nationally and in the Pacific
Northwest this maritime industrial pattern
continued through the 1980s and early 1990s,
when the collapse of Soviet Russia and Communism
marked the end of the Cold War with the United
States.

Chapter four
interrupts this historical chronology to focus
on the rescue, restoration and operation of one
particular patrol and rescue boat, the World War
II era Coast Guard CG-83527. The
83-foot-long boat, which served in Tacoma,
Washington and south Puget Sound from 1945 to
1962, was rediscovered in 2003 by Dan Withers,
president of the nonprofit Combatant Craft of
America, and his wife Roxane. An important
part of Pacific Northwest military maritime
history, the last of the wooden Coast Guard
cutters in military configuration also has an
iconic place in the nation’s patrol boat
history.

The evolution of
terrorism throughout the world in the 1990s, and
its sudden, devastating appearance in the United
States on September 11, 2001, brought a new
awareness of the need for patrol and rescue
boats as part of our national security
strategy. The Puget Sound response to this new
threat is presented in Chapter Five.

Once again, the
Coast Guard and Navy responded with new patrol
forces in the Sound, and also the region’s boat
builders came up with some of the most
innovative, effective patrol boats in the
nation. As they had during previous wars,
Puget Sound-based manufacturers won major
contracts to produce fast response boats for
both homeland assignment and foreign deployment.

Overall Book Summary:
For the most part, the history of military
patrol and rescue boats in the nation and Puget
Sound has been hidden and unknown. This book,
in factual narrative and rare, often dramatic
images, seeks to reveal this fascinating
story. It is a wartime and peacetime saga
about the boats, their crew members, boat
builders, and also those who restore, operate
and exhibit these proud vessels, which symbolize
the nation’s fighting spirit of freedom.